Act I: First Impressions

I was around 22 years old when I first started smoking weed, introduced to it by my late best friend Camden. A few months into my “experiment”, a friend had bought me a mini bong after I had lamented about fashioning pipes out of Arizona and beer cans. I had found a regular dealer in Somerville, MA who would deliver my order via his bike to my apartment in Winchester. I was up late one night, I had gotten from work and had the next day off, browsing the SomethingAwful forums and listening to music. I had read about this strange band, Sunn O))) (pronounced “sun”), how they performed in hooded robes surrounded by amps and fog. Or how their vocalist is none other than legendary Mayhem vocalist Attilla Csihar, who performs in various authentic Egyptian death masks. So, naturally, I downloaded their entire discography having never heard the band in my entire life.

It was probably around midnight, I had been smoking for a couple of hours by that point, and the discography finished downloading. I started with the album White1, which begins with “My Wall“, an 25+ minute track consisting of Julian Cope reciting druidist poetry over the droning guitars of Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley (the two geniuses/madmen behind Sunn O))) ). I was absolutely entranced, perhaps only because I was stoned off my fucking ass (my tolerance was MUCH lower back then, those were the good ol’ days), but something about the sonic assault I was experiencing moved me in a strange way, I couldn’t explain it. I spent the rest of my night listening to the album until I could no longer stay awake.